US ambassador to Georgia calls for new thinking in the Caucasus

Georgians think that anything that benefits Russia automatically hurts the United States, Richard Miles, the US ambassador to Georgia, declared last night on Rustavi 2 television.

That view, he went on, is held throughout the Caucasus. He described it as an ideological leftover of the Cold War period and called on the people of the Caucasus to update their thinking. Miles further said that US does not seek the replacement of Russian peacekeeping troops monitoring the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict by NATO or UN troops. He underscored the identity of US and Russian approaches to resolving the conflict in a peaceful way that honours the territorial integrity of Georgia. Miles emphasized that Russia, for a variety of reasons, has a special role to play in the process of settling the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict, although the US is taking an active part in the process.